


Swimming Upstream

by angrytourist



Series: complex anatomy [3]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-13 00:34:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2130402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angrytourist/pseuds/angrytourist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Skillet on the stove//it’s such a temptation//maybe I’ll be the lucky one that doesn’t get burnt//what the fuck was I thinking?” Fuck was I, Jenny Owen Youngs</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swimming Upstream

He was under the bridge when Hide found him, knees drawn close to his face as he scrubbed furiously at his eyes, angry for being such a baby, for letting himself get pushed around.

“Kaneki?” Hide stopped a few feet away, eyes sharp. “I got your stuff back.”

Kaneki buried his face in his arms. “Go’way,” he muttered.

But Hide knew him too well. He rolled his eyes and dropped Kaneki’s bag at his feet before sitting next to him, their shoulders rubbing together. “Don’t look like that. You couldn’t have done anything!”

“I never can,” he said dully, finally peeking up, eyes red-rimmed. “I wish they’d leave me alone.”

“I bet they will now,” Hide said, cracking his knuckles. “You know, I--”

Kaneki’s eyes snapped open. Hide’s young face was gone, replaced by the dull gray of ceiling bathed in the faint light of morning. 

The dream left him with a sense of old embarrassment at his own ineptitude. He hadn’t had one of those dreams in a while, not since he started high school and learned to hold his own. Hide didn’t have to be responsible for him anymore. 

Not that that stopped him from trying.

Thinking of Hide made him feel sick, so Kaneki tried closing his eyes again and going back to sleep, but by the time he got comfortable enough, the smell of meat caught his stomach’s attention.

_Not us or them_ , Tsukiyama’s note had said.

He was wrong. He had to be wrong.

Kaneki was human. He’d changed, of course, but he was still fundamentally the same. Eating humans wasn’t something he could do. Ever. Being a ghoul was impossible for him, regardless of whose organs he had.

But--

_Don’t think about it._

He needed to do something, keep busy. Kaneki rolled over and grabbed his phone. 6:34 AM. No messages.

That last should be a good thing, but Kaneki felt oddly empty about it. No Hide, no Tsukiyama. It really did feel like he had no place anywhere.

He could only stand being at home for so long before the smell got to him, temptation waving a finger right beneath his nose. His self-control wasn’t what he used to be. Kaneki skipped making his usual coffee and grabbed his bag. He’d get coffee from the street vendor by campus.. Then he’d go to the dean and make his excuses, whatever seemed most plausible. Trauma from his accident? Pain from the recovery? If he played it right, he could get the current semester written off. He’d graduate late, but he’d still make it.

It was what a normal human would do.

xxx

The dean couldn’t see him until ten, so Kaneki lounged about on campus, draining the remainder of his weekly allowance on coffee. He’d been brave enough to try a mocha, but that had ended badly. In a messy sort of way.

Once the coffee was gone - it didn’t take long anymore - Kaneki sat in the courtyard beneath the dean’s office. If he looked up, he’d see the man in his office, doing something that looked like a whole lot of nothing on his computer. ‘Busy until mid-morning’ his ass…

A few groups of students passed by, clusters of friends that made Kaneki’s heart ache. If things had been just a bit different, he’d be just like them. He and Hide would probably meet up between classes and complain about their workload. Hide would drag him to mixers. There wouldn’t be human flesh in fridge, most importantly, and Kaneki cut himself off right there. Just the reminder was enough to set off his hunger anymore, and he’d taken to wearing an eyepatch. If Hide asked, he’d claim an injury or an infection and hope his friend left it at that.

The dean’s secretary stepped out of the building, one hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun. “He’ll see you now.”

“Thanks.” Kaneki stood up, dusting himself off out of nervousness, and followed her inside.

xxx

Lunchtime passed while he was in conference with the dean. He offered to send out for something for them, a rather friendly gesture given the circumstances of their meeting, but Kaneki declined. 

“I’m sure Nishino-san wouldn’t mind,” he said, but Kaneki shook his head.

“I’m fine, really.”

The dean had nodded as though he understood.

Somehow, Kaneki squeaked through with nothing more than academic probation. His semester was completely wiped from his records as a hardship withdrawal. Could he get any luckier?

He pulled out his phone as he left the building and fired a quick message off to Hide asking where he was. Then, out of habit, he checked his received messages: nothing.

“Oh well,” he said to himself, pocketing the phone. It wasn’t like he was expecting anything else.

Hide didn’t reply, so he was probably in class. It had been long enough that Kaneki no longer remembered his schedule. Was he in econ? Or maybe it was a history?

Just as he was about to call it a loss and leave, Kaneki spotted a familiar blonde head bobbing through the courtyard in a huge group just released from a lecture. They came pouring out of one of the older buildings - definitely econ, then - and Hide quickly split off from them, following behind a unfamiliar redhead.

Good, he could still catch him. Kaneki hurried after them, though he got caught up in the crowd. He had to break through, politely shouldering between two girls standing close together, heads bent down over their phones, before he could find them again.

...which he couldn’t. Kaneki frowned, looking around. He’d _just_ seen them! Hide wasn’t exactly difficult to spot in a crowd, and his redheaded companion had towered over him.

Then his phone chirped. Kaneki pulled it out and read: _heading over to a seniors house, meet up with u later??_

He replied with a quick _that’s fine_ , before frowning. There went his plans. Without Hide, he had no reason to stay on campus, but he didn’t really want to go back home either. The thought of sitting in his apartment and staring at his computer screen while he pretended he didn’t know what was in his fridge or that his stomach seemed to be eating itself wasn’t appealing in the least, to put it mildly.

So he didn’t. 

He did things alone before the accident, and he could do them again. Maybe if he thought of things like some huge cosmic test, he’d manage better. He could go to the bookstore - he used to go to a _lot_ of them - and maybe to a cafe. He could read and drink coffee and waste time until Hide was done with whatever he was doing.

Books were safe. They were familiar, reading itself an act that never failed to comfort him. Kaneki could lose himself without worry for a few hours easily. The thought contented him during his walk to the nearest bookstore - a personal favorite of his. 

The crowds were thinning as the afternoon waned. Up ahead, the long rows of shops ended in a construction zone that marked the less reputable side of town. Hide was there.

Kaneki stopped. That couldn’t have been Hide. He’d never let Kaneki near that area of the ward if he could help it, steering him down other roads in an almost motherly way that Kaneki had never been able to resist picking at him about.

Hide _was_ there, though, along with the guy Kaneki saw him leave campus with. The senior, he figured. He was supposed to be going to his house.

Like hell was he going to believe a student from Kamii University lived in that area.

“It’s really none of my business,” he said unconvincingly. He shouldn’t butt into Hide’s life.

But his instincts were saying otherwise. Something about the situation felt off. Hide wasn’t the sort to go against his own common sense without good reason.

The thought of following Hide around made him feel a little too like Tsukiyama. But…

Kaneki cursed under his breath and took off at a jog. Better safe than sorry.

xxx

One day, Kaneki was going to look back on his life and see a series of coincidences too suspiciously well-timed to even feature in a book.

He caught up to Hide and his friend after a few minutes, going into the underdeveloped residential district. Calling it a residential district was pretty generous considering considering the state of it. Ward 20 was better off than a lot of places, but that parts of it that were bad, the poverty-stricken and underdeveloped parts neglected by the government, were _really_ bad. These were the parts hit hardest by ghouls, the people less likely to be missed.

Doubt struck Kaneki again, harder this time. Maybe the upperclassman was a scholarship student on his own? Kaneki was going to feel like a complete asshole--

About a block and a half ahead of him, Hide and his companion stopped. Hide looked away for a moment, and the other guy’s eyes went black.

Kaneki nearly vomited.

Hide’s name ripped from his mouth, the sheer volume of the cry startling him. Hide looked back at him, surprised. His companion’s eyes bled white again. He did not look pleased.

Kaneki hurried over to them, ready for a fight he was sure to lose, but the ghoul’s eyes remained human-looking, his earlier flicker of anger smoothed over in a mask of indifference.

“A friend of yours?” The ghoul looked down his nose at Kaneki.

“Yeah.” Hide looked concerned. “Everything okay? You’re kind of… far out.” He said it like he’d only just realized where he was. 

“You, too,” he said before he could stop himself. 

“School stuff.” Hide shrugged. “This is Nishio Nishiki. We’re on the festival committee together.” He wouldn’t meet Kaneki’s eyes.

“We’re just getting a DVD of last year’s festival,” Nishio cut in, sounding bored.

“Ah, right, well,” _shit, shit, think of an excuse_ , “your advisor!”

“My… advisor?” Hide echoed, bewildered. “What about him?”

“He was looking for you,” Kaneki rambled on, figuring it was too late to stop. “About, um--”

While Kaneki flailed desperately, unable to think of a suitable excuse, Hide glanced between him and Nishio. “My thesis,” he supplied. He turned and smiled apologetically at Nishio. “Sorry, this is my fault. Totally forgot I had a meeting with my advisor!”

“You’re a freshman,” Nishio said flatly.

“And it’s never too early to find a topic,” Hide agreed. “C’mon, Kaneki, thanks for coming all the way out here for me.” The last part was pointed enough that Kaneki winced.

“Yeah,” he said weakly as Hide slung an arm over his shoulder and steered him away, “no problem.” He felt Nishio’s eyes on him long after they were out of sight.

“Are you going to tell me what that was about?” Hide didn’t seem upset, just puzzled.

“I--he just gave me a bad feeling,” Kaneki said, tiptoeing around the truth. “I really don’t believe he lived there…”

Hide hummed thoughtfully. “He always did give me the creeps,” he allowed. “But I don’t have any real reason to think he’s bad news.”

“Majority rules?” Kaneki needed to impress just how bad news Nishio was on Hide. “You should probably avoid him if he gives both of us the creeps.”

“We’re both on the committee.” Hide shrugged like _what can you do?_ “I’ll have to deal with him eventually. Pretty often, too.”

Damn. “Maybe I should join the committee.”

Hide let out a burst of startled laughter. “Yeah right!”

“I could!” Kaneki’s face went pink. “I just--”

“Prefer books to people, yeah,” Hide smiled and bumped their shoulders together. “Trust me, I know.” They walked for a while longer, purposeless, before Hide spoke up again. “What were you doing on campus? You’ve been kind of…” Absent, he didn’t say.

“Meeting with the dean. I got a hardship withdrawal.”

“Lucky!” Hide looked happy about it. “So you’re coming back? I’ve been pretty worried, you know.” Hearing Hide say so was like being welcomed back into the arms of humanity, lifting the weight of everything that had happened off his shoulders.

“Yeah,” Kaneki said, “I guess I am.”

xxx

He and Hide parted ways after dinner. Kaneki managed to slide under Hide’s radar by citing nerves from his meeting with the dean as well as an overly large lunch. His stomach cooperated by not gurgling until after Hide was gone.

Still, he didn’t want to go home. 

The apartment likely stunk of cold human meat, delicious smelling in the way a hot dinner after a long day would be. Kaneki didn’t need the reminder.

He wandered in and out of stores, dazed and tired and unaware of the way the crowds parted for him, the way people avoided walking too close to him. He was near his apartment. He walked a perimeter around it, always a few blocks away as though the distance would keep him from making a terrible mistake.

Hunger weakened him. Kaneki knew it logically, had heard in safety seminars and on television the ways that starvation affected a ghoul. But _feeling_ it was a different matter altogether. Kaneki hurried his pace. He just needed to get home. Coffee, rest, distraction, he needed to get _home_ \--

The first blow clipped the side of his head with enough force to sending him careening into an alley off to the side of the main road. The second did not miss.

Wet warmth spread at his side. There was no pain, not immediately. Kaneki struggled into a sitting position and put a careful hand on his side. Blood.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, but before panic could truly set in, footsteps echoed around him. Kaneki’s first thought was, _oh, I’m saved_ , followed by, _oh shit, I’m screwed!_

Nishio stood at the mouth of the alley, ghoul eyes staring down at him like something unpleasant he’d stepped on. “There you are.”

Kaneki tried to respond, but in place of his voice a pathetic wet gurgling. _I’m going to die_ , he thought. 

Something slipped from beneath Nishio’s shirt, waving in front of him. “You’re new in this ward. I would have been willing to cut you some slack for hunting in my territory, but stealing my meal from right beneath my nose?” He tutted, walking closer. “You’re just another piece of shit, aren’t you?”

Ghoul claws, Kaneki thought, dazed. He’d never seen a ghoul’s claws before. He could have lived without seeing them, too.

Nishio stopped where Kaneki was collapsed, confusion flickering across his face, in and out in seconds. “You’re not healing.”

“What?” Kaneki managed to croak. 

“You must have been desperate, and then you didn’t even manage to eat him?” Nishio sneered. He kept talking, but the sudden onslaught of pain made it impossible for Kaneki to focus. Everything he could hear sounded like it was coming through water, muffled and faintly echoing.

And beneath the pain and the panic and unreasonable sense of shame, a tiny voice, growing steadily louder, could be heard: _you have to run, you have to stay alive, you have to_ \--

Run.

Kaneki tried to move. He still could, though poorly. Nishio hadn’t moved or stopped talking, and though he’d no idea what he was saying, the important thing was that he kept talking. The moment he decided to strike, Kaneki knew all hope would be lost.

The claw - and how strange it should be called that when it looked more like a limb, fluid in its movements and smooth in appearance - swayed lazily in front of Nishio like a threat given form. It could cut him down in an instant. Kaneki could feel himself starting to slip, his consciousness blurring, resignation setting in. There was no escape.

And then he saw it.

People. People were walking past the mouth of the alley. It might have been night, but they were in a heavily populated area that had foot traffic at all hours. Nishio had attacked him in almost plain sight.

Kaneki looked up at him finally, met his eyes, and opened his mouth:

“It’s a ghoul!” he shouted, the words coming out wet and choked but still loud, louder than he’d expected them to be. “A ghoul’s attacking me!”

Nishio froze with a look of such disbelief on his face it was almost comical. 

People began crowding at the mouth of the alley. Someone screamed, and an answering voice said that they’d called the police. 

“You son of a bitch,” Nishio said. His voice was tinged with awe, as though he was almost impressed by Kaneki’s audacity. And then he fled.

The people watching were distracted at the sight of Nishio leaping onto the nearby fire escape and taking to the rooftops. They scattered, panic setting in. Kaneki took advantage of the moment and pulled himself to his feet. He stumbled down the opposite end of the alley before stopping and bracing himself against the wall. Pulling the tattered cloth of his shirt out of the way, he cringed, looking at the wound.

It wasn’t the bloody hole he’d expected, though not by much. Nishio’s claw had torn through him, leaving what looked like a jagged tear seeping raw meat. He touched it gingerly, and the pain made him black out for a few seconds.

Adrenaline had enabled him to get as far as he had, and it was quickly fading now that the danger was gone. A hospital, he needed to get to a hospital, but Kaneki wasn’t sure he was human enough for one. 

Nishio had said something. About healing? That’s right, Kaneki remembered. Nishio thought he should heal.

“Home,” Kaneki said to himself, then repeated it. He would go home and wait for--for the healing, for whatever was supposed to kick in, and then he’d pretend none of it ever happened.

It was fortunate that he was so close to home. The walk felt like enough to kill, and it was only a few blocks, longer than it could have been due to the necessity of sticking to back alleyways. The blood flow slowed, seeping sluggishly from the wound compared to the cascade from earlier. He made it home, just barely. Physically, he could cope. His body carried him on autopilot. 

His mind was another story. As though his body lacked the resources to maintain his mental faculties under the stress of his injury, Kaneki’s thoughts deteriorated. Ever sound he heard on the walk home was a possible meal. He salivated, blood and spit dripping down his chin at the thought of a meal.

When he opened the door to his apartment, the smell of meat dragged him into the kitchen.

_Eat_ , that voice from earlier spoke up. _To live, you have to eat_.

Kaneki nodded dumbly, opening the fridge and dropping to his knees, following the silent command of his imaginary guide. 

The package was quite cold now, and some kind of fluid had seeped out of it, staining the brown paper. He opened a corner. The smell intensified, gripping his focus and drawing him closer. Kaneki closed his eyes, nose nearly pressed to the package as he drew a long, savoring breath.

“Thank you for this meal,” he said, shaking hands starting to unwrap it.

A knock sounded on the door. The sound jarred Kaneki, throwing him out of the half-trance he’d fallen into. He said nothing, and eventually footsteps sounded, carrying into the apartment next door. His neighbor, he noted, numb.

Something dripped on his hands.

Kaneki looked down again at the package. Clarity chose that moment to trickle back into his mind. 

The package. Human meat. 

He’d been about to eat _human meat_.

“No--no, no, _no_!” Kaneki jumped to his feet. Blood trailed on the floor behind him, leading back to the front door and beyond, and Kaneki couldn’t tell where it came from, the package or him, but he knew he had to get it out. He had to get rid of it.

“I’m a human,” if he said it enough, it would be true. Kaneki chanted it like a mantra as he fled into the hall, banging his door open and running. A shout sounded behind him, but he couldn’t stop, he had to _go_.

Back into the alleys. He ran, delirious from pain and held up by sheer force of will.

“I’m human!”

He would throw it in the river, forget he’d ever known the stench of flesh.

“I’m huma--”

He stumbled, the strength in his legs failing. The package hit the ground hard, rupturing. Meat - some kind of bundle of organs - seeped out.

Kaneki fell to his knees at the sight of it. His vision blurred red. Shaky hands grasped fistfuls of it, shoving the cold meat into his mouth. Once he started eating, he couldn’t stop, falling into a state of elation he’d never felt before, egged on by every mouthful. 

And then it was gone, but not _enough_.

A scream, another smell, this one much more fresh and warm. Kaneki dug into it with something that wasn’t his hands but felt so much more… _correct_. Kaneki ate and ate and ate. He ate until his stomach groaned and the pain was gone. 

His vision wavered, and the red slipped away. The world looked normal again.

Kaneki looked down. His hands were spattered red, and from behind him, something sinewy and dark was swaying, pulling almost playfully at what must have once been a man.

He wanted to be sick, but his stomach remained calm. 

“I’m human,” he said, collapsing. The words were empty, and he knew they were lies.

Time slipped away from him. Kaneki faded in and out. He was at the body’s feet. He was huddled against the wall by a trash bin.

He didn’t know how much time passed before his hand founds its way into his pocket and pulled out his phone, but it was morning when he did, the light soft and altogether too gentle to touch the bloodied alley.

Numbly, he flipped through his contacts. Pressed call. It rang once, twice, then the line picked up. 

“Kaneki-kun, to what do I owe this pleasure?”


End file.
